


No Strings Attached

by kalypsobean



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:46:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set roughly mid S9 in Supernatural and post-comics for Buffy. Dean goes to help a damsel in "distress" only to find a Slayer who can take care of herself just fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Strings Attached

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiddencait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/gifts).



_Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,_  
 _Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness;_  
 _So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,_  
 _Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence._  
 _\-- The Theologian's Tale, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_

 

She talks a lot; it's the first thing Dean notices. The vamps threaten her and she nearly laughs; her voice lacks the viciousness behind her words when she replies, though she's clearly strained as she pauses in the middle of sentences, like a pianist fumbling in the middle of a phrase. 

He already has his machete; this might not be what he's been hunting, and it's certainly not daylight, but he jogs down the alley all the same, thoughts of a bed, porn and a six-pack forgotten.

"What the hell?" she says. "Get out of here," and that's aimed at him, but he ignores her now; they're outnumbered, and even though the stray light from the street illuminates her in interesting ways, he can't afford to be distracted. He's already surrounded, and even two-handed, it takes more than one strike to separate the heads from these ones. They're the demonic kind, the ones that grow more than fangs and have more than a passing care for things like loyalty and makers, and they're strong.

She ducks and rolls, and he turns toward her out of instinct, because falling usually means injuries, but she springs up easily and flicks her wrist, throwing him a stake even as she thrusts another into a vamp that had been tricked the same way and closed in, mouth open. 

"At least do that right," she says, and then she's lost again, her shadow mixing with her assailants as he catches the stake, thinner than the neck of a beer bottle and just about as long, and now he's got the machete in his left hand and a stake in his right. The vamps keep coming, until they don't; he has to put his body weight behind the stake as he drives it up, between the ribs and through the lung until the vamp dissipates into dust and another one takes its place, until there aren't any more.

 

He hands the stake back to her without a word, and she tilts her head to the left. "Hunter?" she says, as she slides it back down into her right boot. "Your kind don't normally come this far into town," and that's true, because nothing supernatural that happens here lives long enough to draw attention. Dean's not here to find out why (at least, that's what he tells himself), but it seems pointless to admit it when the answer is standing right there, and it's not even the one he was looking for.

"Just passing through," he says instead, and it sounds as snappy and light as she does, even though, if there was gas money to be had, he'd bet she sees straight through him. He's on a roll, after all; the seedy bars are always good hustling ground, even when they're not filled with the kind of people vamps usually prey on.

"There's a Motel 6, if you head back towards the highway, just east of the ramp," she says, and then she's gone, curves melding into the shadows. He wonders if it was just kindness or a veiled request to get out of her turf. Either way, it's probably closest and he's got a few cuts just making themselves known; his jeans are sticking to his thighs and there's a patch of something cold and itchy just over his left hip. The dust swirls slightly as he turns, and some of that sticks to his skin, held there by sweat and by the way he wears his trade on every inch of his body.

 

There's a single light in the rear-vision mirror as he guides the Impala out onto the road; it stays there, would be three cars back if this was day and the roads were full, and peels off only when he finds the motel, which truly is a dump and barely worthy of the chain. A request, then, and he shakes off the disappointment as he checks in, flashing the right kind of smile and enough of the night's cash to ensure the clerk's silence.

It still feels a little weird, strange to be doing this part of the routine alone, though the novelty of getting a shower as soon as possible has worn off, sanded down by gratefulness for being clean. His beer is still warm from being in the passenger footwell, but he's too worn out to head back out to the ice machine. Even with the lukewarm water beating down on his back, the fatigue is setting in and bringing all the old scars to the surface, where they are stretched thin and hurt when he moves. The room is as safe as he can make it with the supplies he has, but still, he tenses when he hears a rattle that is not from poorly-maintained pipes, and he regrets, however briefly, that he brought a knife in with him and not even a pair of jeans. 

It's not a threat, though; the girl is on the bed, one of his beers opened and half-empty in her hand. Perhaps, he thinks, he's so used to having someone there that he missed the more subtle signs of her entrance - the opening of a door or window, footsteps - or he's actually tired enough that his hearing's dulled with the blurring around the edges of his vision.

"Making sure I leave town?" he says.

"Something like that," she says, and she looks straight at him, like she sees more than the tattoo and the mark. "Thought we could have a wicked good time 'til sunup."

Dean frowns, not that she isn't his type; it's like the hairs on the back of his neck haven't stopped standing since he joined her fight, and now she's here he knows it wasn't the vamps that made them so.

"Normally, I'd be all over that, but..."

"You're too tired; should've seen that one coming." She says it like it's something she's used to, like he's just another human boy in a line, except she's still looking through him. "Something's going on with you, isn't it?" She pats the bed beside her, and of course he got a double so he can't just take the other one. He digs out a pair of jeans and the only clean shirt he has left, and goes back to the bathroom to change.

She's still there when he comes back out, of course, but she has a second beer and she's holding it out to him. He takes it; he's had a drink with worse, and she's apparently not trying to kill him.

 

"I am not the person you want to get life advice from," she says, when the silence has grown into a thing that could send the window shattering into the parking lot, "but not just any guy would have come into that alley, not even any hunter. Whatever it is, it's gonna be the right thing, in the end. Quit stressing, relax already."

"You going to help with that?" he says, and she laughs. 

"Moment's passed, buddy."

He falls asleep on her shoulder while some black and white rerun on public access makes the room flicker in white that reaches his dreams like the suffocating glare of angel grace. 

 

He wakes up to a piece of paper where she was, the bed still warm and the window a little bit open to let in the sun. _"415-555-1337. Don't be a stranger, Faith."_ , it says.

He thinks about it, when he's on the road, how easy it would be; he hides the note in his duffel and then in his room, for when it's done.


End file.
